worried about depressed daughter

bookiemom
Tue, 24 Oct 2006 17:56:37 +0000

Post 36 has some good advice. Even though your D is struggling, coming home and leaving college adds in another whole layer of problems. This thread brings back a lot of memories of the struggles we had with our D last fall. We had two months of just a nightmare scene of depression. Snowball in her post said her D’s sadness is eating a hole in her, and that describes it exactly…and the hole is in your heart.

I would never have believed that my D as she was in high school could have had such a crash. Counseling, antidepressants, and my constant “talk therapy” got her through the two months and she came home at Christmas break a thin, pale wreck. Four weeks of TLC over break helped a lot and gradually she got better over spring. By summer she was back to her old self.

I really want to reach out to those other moms on this thread that are dealing with the sobbing phone calls. I feel that I really lost those months of my life as I was constantly dealing with my D from mid-Oct. through finals. I was her sort of lifeline to make it through each day and it was so draining. I would jump every time the phone would ring. She didn’t want to come home, but she wasn’t doing well staying there either. I carried all the important phone numbers at her college with me everywhere, including the campus police. After about a month on antidepressants and therapy, she was coping a little better and then she did make it through the semester and got good grades too.

One thing you could do is to call the dean of students and talk about options with her/him. I had to make an appointment to have the dean call me but she was very nice and most helpful and I had all the options explained about withdrawal, further options for counseling, and so on. For example, the counseling center has an arrangement for consultation visit with a psychiatrist to evaluate meds if needed. The dean also offered to contact all my D’s professors confidentially to alert them that this student was struggling. I did not request that, but I think she did it anyway, because my D’s math professor gave her extra time on a test and went out of his way to be nice to her. You might ask for that option. I felt it was good to make contact with the dean’s office since I didn’t know what I might need to ask for later.